Not a throwaway memoryEach World Series seems to produce...

Off the beat

One of the biggest was Boston Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky. He took the heat when Enos Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals scored the winning run in the seventh game of the 1946 World Series.

Slaughter was on first base in the eighth inning when Harry Walker got a hit. Taking a relay from the outfield, Pesky figured that Slaughter would stop at third. As Pesky caught the ball, he relaxed, dropping his hands rather than cocking to throw. That was all Slaughter needed. He ran through a stop sign to score the run that ended up deciding the World Series.

Pesky always took the blame, but he never heard the end of it.

A fan long on memory but short on mercy spotted him one time at a college football game. It was a miserable game, ruined by bad weather that left the field muddy and the ball slippery. One fumble followed another.

Sallie Wheeler, when she became the first woman to be appointed president of the National Horse Show and it was written that the National Horse Show "has its first filly as president": "I'm so glad to be known as a filly and not an old mare."